NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co said Monday that a U.S. government request to add one of its executives as a defendant in a fraud case may be in retaliation for the bank's decision to cut off settlement talks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve said on Monday it did not object to new capital plans by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, after regulators said the initial versions showed weaknesses in the banks' capital planning processes.

Alan S. Kaplinsky The CFPB announced today that it will be holding a field hearing on arbitration on December 12, 2013 at 11 a.m. CST in Dallas, Texas. The hearing will feature remarks from Director Cordray and testimony from consumer groups, industry representatives, and members of the public. Consistent with its typical practice, the CFPB may use the... More &#62;

Nouriel Roubini was one of the most presciently pessimistic analysts of the global economy in the run-up to the global financial crisis. And now he thinks it's happening again. Roubini doesn't see bubbles in the places where they were most severe in the pre-2008 period. He doesn't mention the United States or Spain or Ireland. Rather, Roubini sees housing prices getting out of whack in quite a few small and mid-sized nations that are well-governed and managed to avoid the worst economic effects of the financial crisis: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the London metropolitan area in the U.K. He adds some key emerging markets that show the same dynamic: Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Israel, and major urban centers in Turkey, Indonesia, India and Brazil. Read full article &#62;&#62; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Even though media coverage on the economy may focus on how the holiday shopping season is unfolding, economy-watchers will still want to keep an eye on these five things in the reports scheduled for the week ending December 6.

Our story so far: Some 2.1 million out-of-work Americans will lose their unemployment insurance early next year unless Congress extends an emergency aid program that's set to expire on Dec. 28. So what will happen to all those workers? There's a real possibility they might just drop out of the labor force entirely. Read full article &#62;&#62; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Persistently weak job growth, higher taxes on families and record-breaking government debt are the hallmarks of the failed economic experiment known as Obamanomics. It is an experiment made up of many policies, but its core revolves around one central belief: A larger, more powerful, more intrusive government can and should fix every problem. The fact that you can no longer keep your health insurance, even if you like it, is yet more proof that government today has more control over our lives than ever. Perhaps nowhere is the presence of government more intrusive and dominant than in housing. Government has maintained an oversized role in housing, based largely on the noble - but ultimately unsound - proposition that everyone should be encouraged to own a home. Tragically, a federal government that lives well beyond its means also encourages Americans to do the same. What has been the effect of government housing policy? A dizzying cycle of booms and busts, first regionally in places such as California, New England and the western "oil patch" states, culminating finally in the massive national housing bubble that gave way to the financial crisis. That crisis should have shown the wealth-destruction and significant social costs of exaggerated government intervention in housing. Yet instead of pursuing meaningful reforms, President Obama used the crisis to create a virtual government monopoly of the housing finance system. At the heart of this monopoly are taxpayer-backed entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration, which now guarantee nine of every 10 new mortgages. This puts hardworking taxpayers on the hook for more than $6 trillion in mortgage guarantees, more than one-third the size of our entire economy. The unfortunate irony here is that the very institutions the administration is relying upon to prop up our housing system are themselves already broken, broke and bailed out. Fannie and Freddie infamously received the biggest...

EBay and Amazon.com rose after researcher ComScore reported online spending on Black Friday gained 15 percent to a record $1.2 billion. The national Retail Federation estimated that retail sales fell by 2.7 percent during the full Thanksgiving weekend to $57.4 billion.

By Vice President, Interim Head of Single-Family Sales & Relationship Management Christina K. Boyle One reason community based lenders are known for delivering quality service is because they are deeply rooted in the markets they serve and often know their customers on a first-name basis. Maintaining this legacy in the new world we live in requires community based lenders to adapt to new regulations, technologies, and customer demands despite having smaller staff and fewer resources than their bigger competitors. Read More

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